There’s a reason why my name is Barack Hussein Obama: US President's visit back to his father's country

[caption id="attachment_2363584" align="alignnone" width="940"] “Obviously, this is personal for me,” US president Barack Obama said in the opening speech of his official visit to Kenya. “There’s a reason why my name is Barack Hussein Obama.” Reuters[/caption][caption id="attachment_2363626" align="alignnone" width="940"] The two-day visit to Kenya takes on added weight given his connection to the country, through his Kenyan father. Obama is the first US president to visit the country, which he mentioned as a point of pride in his address at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Nairobi. Reuters[/caption][caption id="attachment_2363586" align="alignnone" width="940"] US President Barack Obama (L) and Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta arrive for a joint news conference after their meeting at the State House in Nairobi. Reuters[/caption][caption id="attachment_2363590" align="alignnone" width="940"] Obama did little to paper over policy differences with Kenya's government, most notably on gay rights. He drew on his own background as an African-American, noting the slavery and segregation of the U.S. past and saying he is "painfully aware of the history when people are treated differently under the law." Kenyatta was unmoved, saying gay rights "is not really an issue on the foremost mind of Kenyans. And that is a fact." Reuters[/caption][caption id="attachment_2363594" align="alignnone" width="940"] The president announced more than a billion dollars in public and private commitments to support startups in the region. Reuters[/caption][caption id="attachment_2363600" align="alignnone" width="940"] U.S. President Barack Obama bows his head after laying a wreath at Memorial Park on the former site of the US Embassy, where al Qaeda bombed the compound in 1998 killing more than 200 people, in Nairobi, Kenya. Reuters[/caption]